Historical Research Series Guest - Nancy Jardine

A former primary teacher, Nancy Jardine, lives in the castle country of Aberdeenshire – Scotland. Ancestry research is an intermittent hobby: neglecting her large garden in favour of writing is becoming the norm. Activity weekends with her extended family are prized since they give her great fodder for new writing.

A lover of history, it sneaks into most of her writing along with many of the fantastic world locations she has been fortunate to visit. Her published work to date has been two non fiction history related projects; two contemporary ancestral mysteries; one light-hearted contemporary romance mystery and a historical novel. She has been published by The Wild Rose Press and Crooked Cat Publishing

To date, I’ve completed two historical fiction novels which are set
in Celtic/ Roman Britain. The Beltane
Choice, AD 71 -an adventure story
of love and war- is set in the area we now call the borders between Scotland
and England. I’m currently working on a sequel to this which spans between AD
71 and AD 84, the action taking place in Northern England and all the way up to
the north east of Scotland.

Dabbling With Time (as yet unpublished) is a time- travel adventure novel set in
Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which takes three children back to the Roman Severan
occupation of the area in the era of AD 210. The Severan campaigns were the
last time the Roman Empire occupied the northern areas of Scotland. This novel
is designed for the early teen’s age group.

My second work in progress is a family saga. It’s also set mainly in
Scotland and northern England, starts in the Victorian era of 1850 and goes
through to around the post WW2 era.

My other three published novels are contemporaries, though two of
those have a historical element dating back to the Victorian era.

Do you have any special
connection to the period? e.g. a degree in American History,well-known family history,
etc.

I have a degree in History and Literature (European), the time
periods for that mainly spanning from 15th Century though to
Victorian times. My profession, till 2011, was primary teaching which I stopped
before retirement age to concentrate on my writing. During my teaching years I taught historical
periods to my classes (mostly grade 7 for 3 decades) as part of the curriculum
and loved teaching all historical eras, most especially the Roman occupation of
Britannia. We had great fun attempting to recreate the Celtic/ Roman era in
class (as much as was conceivable) and this influenced my writing choices. I
also loved learning about the Victorian period and one of my hobbies is
ancestry. My Family saga will, I hope, be enhanced by my prior knowledge of the
Victorian era. It’s also influenced, to a certain degree, by what I’ve
unearthed about the black sheep of my own murky family past- although my story
is a work of fiction!

What appeals to you about
these periods?

My interest in the Celtic/Roman period is heavily influenced by the
archaeological evidence that’s being constantly updated as we speak. I’m also
totally gobsmacked (to use a pretty modern term) by the fact that
archaeological evidence, uncovered in 2004, indicated that my house in
Aberdeenshire is about 400 yards from the site of a Roman Marching Camp thought
to have been used three times between AD 84 and AD 210. The camp potentially housed
10,000 Roman soldiers for an indeterminate amount of time. Those soldiers had
to have marched over MY GARDEN! The idea of all those soldiers of history
tramping around my house just blows me away!

That archaeological site is now covered by the current village
school built in 2005, the previous Victorian built school having used largely the
same site. I taught at the school and my class was invited, on a few occasions,
to see the progress of the dig. Our topics during that time definitely included
the Roman occupation of the area. My class wrote fantastic Celtic/Roman
adventures and from that point on I decided when I had more time I would write,
and have published, Celtic/ Roman adventures of my own.

2005 was not the time for that writing since I was asked to write a
complete History of Kintore School which dates back to the early 1500s.
Researching for that was fantastic. The local library and the Heritage Society
had some great sources. Though, the best prime sources I have ever used were
the ‘Head Teacher Logs’ which dated back to 1870, and went through to the
present time. I got heaps of useful information from them. 350 copies of that
book were sold, the profits going into the school coffers- all of my time and
effort totally voluntary! I consider myself so lucky to be steeped in history
in Aberdeenshire.

How much time do you spend
researching each book?

That has depended on the genre. Two of my contemporary novels are
what I call my ancestral mysteries. For my recent Topaz Eyes I did a little
research on emeralds and precious jewellery collections since the story is a
treasure hunt of sorts. I needed no particular research on how to design family
trees for these novels since I’d already learned the skills from my personal
ancestry research.

A lot of the research for my historical novel, The Beltane Choice, was done years ago for teaching purposes,
though I had to ‘top it up’ as I wrote. It was a similar case for the
time-travel adventure for early teens.

My current works in progress are a sequel to The Beltane Choice which has needed hours and hours of research,
mainly for the Roman perspective of the era of AD 71-84. I’m also doing
occasional Victorian and Edwardian research for the family saga that’s also
been started.

Do you tend to
research before you write, or more as you write?

Both of those. I spent last September reading/ re-reading as many
texts as I could lay hands on that had references to the Roman occupation of AD
70 through to AD 84. For general information on how the Roman armies operated
in newly settled areas I’ve done a lot of internet research. As I write my historicals
I tend to go back all the time and check facts to make sure that what I want to
use, and think is okay, really is accurate. Even though my work is fiction I
want to include any facts as accurately as possible. My research texts are
never far from my keyboard. For my Victorian saga it’s much the same. If
something comes to mind that I want to use I try to check as I go, or mark the
area on my draft (I use a red font for things to check).

Do you tend to use
secondary or primary research sources?

For the Celtic/ Roman research there are almost no primary sources
available. I’m using translations of Tacitus, Livy and Suetonius as I don’t
speak Latin. An archaeologist colleague of mine at Crooked Cat Publishing, who
published The Beltane Choice, gave me a very useful list of publications that
deal with the Roman occupation of Britain. I’ve managed to get some of those in
kindle versions, others in hardback and I’ve borrowed from The British Library
using inter-library loan agreements.

For my Victorian research I’ve used texts I bought years ago for my
own degree studies and some more recent ones bought for teaching needs. I’m
also using the local and inter-Library systems for accessing newspapers, and
other data that’s available on line. The internet can be a huge source of
information if used warily!

Any favorite
sources?

Imperial General: The Remarkable Career of Petelius Cerialis by
Philip Matyszak; Roman York by Patrick Ottaway ; Britannia A History of Roman
Britain by Sheppard Frere

Have you ever found out
after a book was published that you made an error with a historical fact?

Not that I know of!

Which authors in this time
period do you enjoy? Or, who inspires you?

There are fewer authors who write in the Roman/Celtic era, so I
can’t say any have inspired me. Years ago I read all the current Roman novels
of David Wishart and enjoyed those, and the Roman ‘detective’ novels of Lyndsey
Davis were fun to read. For the Celtic period I love the work of Morgan
Llewellyn-eg The Bard. I go back to Charles Dickens and Charles Kingsley for
‘real’ Victorian fiction, though I’ve also read heaps of work set in Victorian
times- too many great authors to mention.